


Hanakotoba XxxHolic

by Dorotheian



Series: Canary Cage [5]
Category: CLAMP - Works, xxxHoLic
Genre: Flower Language, Gen, Shorts, Symbolism, hanakotoba, topical collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1618184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorotheian/pseuds/Dorotheian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is one of those subjects that it is difficult to get paper resources for. My experience with flower-languages is that meanings vary widely depending on who wrote the manual, so I feel the search is important. (I'm not giving up, either; I'm still looking.) Anyway, with the resources below I had enough information to get started; and as I'm looking to them for inspiration purposes, it's probably not necessary to get too in-depth.</p><p>I did eventually find (one) fairly plausible hanakotoba link. This one was originally an article called “Kawaii Culture: The Language of Flowers" written by Coral Peterson for TokyoPop, but the article is down; it was preserved elsewhere: http://www.gaiaonline.com/journal/?mode=view&post_id=5680673&u=3296800</p><p>The links below I have some doubts about, but by comparing them all I can be fairly sure of what a flower means. Peruse them if you wish~</p><p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakotoba<br/>http://7scions.fallenash.com/index.php?topic=32.0<br/>http://www.silverdragonstudio.com/sumi-e/hanak.html<br/>http://www.flowershopnetwork.com/blog/hanakotoba-japanese-flowers/<br/>http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/secret-lives-of-Japanese-flowers<br/>http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/17-Japanese-flower-meanings</p></blockquote>





	1. Daffodils (水仙, suisen) - Respect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those subjects that it is difficult to get paper resources for. My experience with flower-languages is that meanings vary widely depending on who wrote the manual, so I feel the search is important. (I'm not giving up, either; I'm still looking.) Anyway, with the resources below I had enough information to get started; and as I'm looking to them for inspiration purposes, it's probably not necessary to get too in-depth.
> 
> I did eventually find (one) fairly plausible hanakotoba link. This one was originally an article called “Kawaii Culture: The Language of Flowers" written by Coral Peterson for TokyoPop, but the article is down; it was preserved elsewhere: http://www.gaiaonline.com/journal/?mode=view&post_id=5680673&u=3296800
> 
> The links below I have some doubts about, but by comparing them all I can be fairly sure of what a flower means. Peruse them if you wish~
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakotoba  
> http://7scions.fallenash.com/index.php?topic=32.0  
> http://www.silverdragonstudio.com/sumi-e/hanak.html  
> http://www.flowershopnetwork.com/blog/hanakotoba-japanese-flowers/  
> http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/secret-lives-of-Japanese-flowers  
> http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/17-Japanese-flower-meanings

 

"Part-timer!  _Baito-kun!_ " Yuuko calls from the other side of the house. "Come see my gift!"

"Yes?" Watanuki runs around the house and is unprepared for the bushel of daffodils she shoves into his arms. The indignant daffodils bristle and begin to clamor, honking  at being handed off so rudely to someone they don’t trust yet. Shocked and surprised, Watanuki jumps a foot in the air and almost falls off the porch.

Stunned into silence, the trumpets stop honking and weave uncertainly on their stems instead, knocking into each other gently. They seem to have been frightened by the sudden lurch.

Yuuko smiles wickedly behind her hand. ”Go find a vase for those, will you? And put sugar in the water. Those daffodils are special. Treat them gently.”

Watanuki shifts the bundle in his arms. The daffodils quack like ducks. This time they sound more inquiring.

Maybe they just need some reassurance. “Er, uh. I’ll take care of them,” he promises, eyeing them doubtfully.

Yuuko just laughs. “They’re not that intelligent.”

"Don’t you think plants can hear you speak to them? Don’t they grow better, or something?"

Yuuko shrugs. “Perhaps.”

Watanuki carefully edges into the shop to deposit the flowers gently into Yuuko’s best vase, and runs water over their stems while he fills the pot. Then he has a thought, and stops the water. The daffodils chastise him with short honks.

"Yuuko?" Watanuki yells, when they’ve gone quiet.

"Wha~at?"

"Do you want them arranged later?"

"No, they’re fine as they are, Watanuki-kun. Let them be," Yuuko calls.

"All right!" Watanuki remembers the sugar and throws some in the water. The daffodils gurgle—with pleasure, apparently. They really are bizarre.

Yuuko walks in. “Oh, that’s lovely, Watanuki-kun.”

"Where you want me to put them?"

"In the window of course!"

"How long will they last?"

"Oh, I think until the month of June."

"That late? Isn’t it still April? And these are cuttings!"

"I told you, they’re special." Yuuko reaches out and pinches his cheek for no apparent reason. "You just turned a year older. These flowers have their own time to live." She smiles with a weird softness he only sees in dreams with her; but before he can really take that in, her eyes darken and harden.

Watanuki rubs his cheek. “I suppose.” He doesn’t really get it. And why did she pinch him like that? “Who gave them to you?”

"Oh, an old friend of mine."

She has a lot of those.

"I wasn’t expecting these," Yuuko says, stepping forward to nuzzle the flowers; they honk, soft and dulcet. "They came all the way from across the world. I helped them a very long time ago. But they said they simply thought of me, and wanted to pay their respects."

"That’s…amazing." Watanuki stares at her. She’s being so…affectionate. It weirds him out a little.

"They were good people," Yuuko muses. "It was a different life. Yet somehow the respect carried over. I wonder."

"Wonder what?"

Yuuko smiles mysteriously at Watanuki. “I have no idea.”

She says that, but when she thinks he’s not looking because his back is turned a few moments later, she looks somber again, and troubled. Watanuki knows that sometimes the witch tells lies, but he doesn’t know why. As always, she confuses him.

Respect is a good thing, isn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because why not.
> 
> http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Honking_daffodil
> 
> In case you’re wondering if I am suggesting that Yuuko has contacts in the Wizarding world, why of course she does.


	2. Hydrangea (紫陽花, ajisai) - Pride

They approached the strange red hydrangea without much idea of what they would discover. The rain spirit had been vague. Watanuki hadn’t made any sense at all. Right now, Watanuki was loudly complaining, and Doumeki was ignoring him. Doumeki had a hard time believing they would find anything with Watanuki chattering like that. Not that he knew exactly what they were looking for…

That was what Doumeki was thinking until he heard Watanuki’s voice cut off mid-sentence. When Doumeki turned back, Watanuki was gone; the blue umbrella he had been holding fell and rolled on the damp ground. Belatedly, Doumeki gave a shout; its sound was swallowed by the wild, misty space. He stepped towards the umbrella. Rain, streaking harder now from above, pattered the canopy above Doumeki’s head, and water dripped down the inside canvas of Watanuki’s umbrella. Doumeki scooped it up and shook it out, closed it, and laid it on the ground again.

He briefly considered trying to find the shop he couldn’t see and demand…but his conscience wouldn’t permit it. Watanuki had simply  _gone._  He must come back, and Doumeki couldn’t afford to miss that moment.

He started poking around the earth in the area Watanuki had been investigating when he was last seen. There was nothing remarkable. He tried digging, but only succeeded in frustrating himself.

The rain beat down and still Doumeki stayed. His arm tired quickly of holding up the umbrella.

Yuuko came by with her advice and instructions on what to do with the ribbons. She also suggested she knew approximately when Watanuki would return. Doumeki refused to budge.

Yuuko chuckled and pressed a paper packet into his hands, which he slipped into his pocket. By the feel and the heft of the packet, it probably contained some sort of medicine.

Doumeki got the feeling that she was (fondly, in her way) laughing at him and calling him a fool, but he didn’t say anything, and she walked away soon after.

But he had to. He would wait until until the effort killed him. There was no one else to do it.

Doumeki got out the ribbons, and tied held the ends in his one hand. After that, Doumeki passed the time catching rain to wash the mud off. With some resignation, he realized the little dirt crescents stuck under his fingernails would have to wait would have to wait until he had access to a sink. It was distasteful because he found himself wanting to hide it. It would be nice if Watanuki would be oblivious enough not to notice the dirt…

Like a fisherman settled down with his lure, he waited.

After a time, he noticed a slight tugging. Doumeki tugged back. The ribbon jerked. So Doumeki pulled, and kept pulling. Before his eyes Himawari’s ribbon elongated, and extended, and finally, after one last yank, it was trapped and scrunched tightly between Watanuki’s fingers. Doumeki followed his hand to the outstretched arm and Watanuki slid into view, blinking; his other hand was flung behind him, clasping the….bones of a….wrist, not far from where Doumeki had been digging before. And the red blooms…the blooms of the hydrangea had become blue.

Doumeki caught a chill. He pulled Watanuki back to his feet, which was an awkward process since Watanuki got stuck, hampered by the skeleton caught on his wrist, and had to shake it off. But finally they were both standing, blinking at each other and clutching Himawari’s ribbons, which were somehow back to their normal size.

Doumeki endured the shouts of bewilderment ( _what, how much time had passed?!!_ ), left the ribbons in Watanuki’s care. Watanuki seemed to be having trouble getting his bearings back; he claimed only a few minutes had passed. He failed to notice Doumeki’s fatigue or the soaking of the earth around him, but Doumeki figured Yuuko would inform him of that soon enough. He walked home as soon as he was able. He already had a bit of a headache and had begun to weave on his feet. He wished the boy would figure out what would happen without being told. Then he wished that he wouldn’t…

Regardless of his feelings, regardless of whether he was noticed, the fact remained that Doumeki had wanted and needed to be there. That was pride. He wanted to be recognized. That was pride. He hated to look foolish. That was also pride.

Besides that, there was not being noticed at all.

Doumeki had not waited all that afternoon in the rain in order to be praised or thanked, but he could not deny that he was tired from the ordeal, that he had not received either form of commendation, and that his pride had been bruised and disappointed. He hadn’t consciously expected anything from Watanuki. Yet the lack of consideration hurt more than he thought it should.


	3. Lotus (藕, hasu) - Far from a loved one

It’s in one of those dim moments after Yuuko’s disappearance that Watanuki remembers only barely, as if through a fine seive or a filter, looking down on himself from a great height, and the image is stretched. Everything in those days is gray, is dust, is silver, is tarnished.

One afternoon, Watanuki becomes tired of avoiding everything that reminds him of her, and he goes to confront the house that contained all of her. He walks without detours straight into Yuuko's room, the heart of the forbidden, and he unlocks the mahogany wardrobe, and roots through Yuuko’s old majestic robes. He has no particular ulterior motives. He simply does it, looking for something, anything, to keep him rooted in the past. Or to keep him moving—forward. He doesn’t know which. He doesn't even know where the idea came from.

The girls Maru and Moro watch, silent, hanging on the doorframe to Yuuko's room, waiting for a word.

His hands are shaking and sweaty and he’s glad that Doumeki isn’t there to watch. With some irritation, he thinks that Doumeki would have thought something stupid and pervy. Of that he’s pretty sure. But that's not what this is about at all. It irks him to think of the big brute and this is the first time Doumeki has left him alone since Yuuko vanished, and it would be nice if he could get out of his thoughts for a while. It was clear that Doumeki didn’t want to go, but something came up. Watanuki doesn’t know what. He wasn’t listening.

He’s relieved now he’s gone, really.

He pulls hangars and hangars of clothes off the rack, hands them to the girls, and they lay them flat on the bed for comparison. When he beckons, the girls spring forward to help him pile them nicely. They are excellent quality, all of them. Watanuki knows how to sew, of course, but now that they are arrayed in front of him he realizes that he doesn’t know the first thing about altering them. This makes him feel strangely helpless.

Because he needs to look the part. The part of shopkeeper. And without Yuuko's example, he doesn't know the first place to start.

Perhaps he can bribe Kochoushu’s teacher to teach him the finer details of hand-sewing. For that, there’s always Yuuko’s best saké.

At the same time, it depresses him to have to rely on other people like this. For as long as he can remember, he’s been independent.

Watanuki squelches that thought.

His life is different now.

Watanuki always thought Yuuko had piles of clothes tucked away but he never realized quite how many. There are heaps upon heaps of them, mostly in Japanese or Chinese styles, but there are a few Middle Eastern types and and classy modern and antique European styles as well.

It’s the Japanese and the Chinese styles that interest him most. He returns the others to the wardrobe. Cheongsam and qipao, kimono, and a few of the high-collared European vests are what he has left to work with. That’s still plenty. He can even mix styles if he pleases. Yuuko did that too. But not just yet.

What’s left?

_Lotuses._

Except for the swallowtail butterfly prints and various seasonal and elemental geometric designs, the lotus motif comprises at least half of what is left.

Who did she miss?

He misses her.

_Yuuko..._

~~~

Watanuki wears the one kimono that looks closest to fitting him. It still has Yuuko’s scent on it, a serene incense mixed with cedar, smoky and elegant and ancient and subtly not-of-this-world. It is the antique scent of things that are fated to pass away forgotten. Wearing it makes him slightly uncomfortable, as it's a sophisticated thing he hasn't grown into. But it’s another reminder of her. Her scent will disappear most quickly of all the things she left behind.

Watanuki is cooking again when Doumeki comes back. By coincidence, he’s at the part where he’s humming and roughly chopping up the lotus roots into even slices for a stew. The root slices look vaguely fungal as they are riddled with empty holes. Funny, how he notices that. It's something he never thought about before. Oddly enough, right now he is at the most lucid he has been for the past few weeks after adjusting to the spell that makes him immortal. He wipes sweat from his forehead. It's hot and humid today.

Doumeki takes one step into the room and freezes cold.

Watanuki glances at him and wonders what's gotten into him.

Doumeki drops his school bag and stares, dumbfounded.

"What?" Watanuki snaps, irritated.  _Spit it out!_

Doumeki doesn’t respond; he rests, poised like an insect, rocking on the balls of his feet and his hands open and close without clenching. He's gasping for air.

"Is something wrong?" Watanuki asks, dropping the ladle into the soup tureen and taking a step towards Doumeki.

Doumeki swallows and drops his head, and presses the palm of his hand to his forehead. "No, it's...you...you're becoming  _her_." He leans heavily on the doorway. "Far away. Unreachable. _I can't..._ " He's overwhelmed. Far things seem near, and vice versa, everything fluctuating, and he doesn't know how to anchor himself.

Watanuki doesn't know what to say, but he doesn't know a simple wardrobe change could affect Doumeki so deeply. All he can do is show his concern, but Doumeki seems to be retreating from him.

“Can't _touch_ you... _useless_ ,” Doumeki mutters, crushingly, to himself. “Lotus blossoms…why did you?...I  _can’t_ …” He rises, somewhat unsteady, back to his feet. ”I’ll come back tomorrow,” he grunts, and picks up his briefcase, and staggers out of the shop.

On the road home he dashes wetness from his eyes, an excess of salt or sweat left over from practice and hot sun, or the sting of sunscreen washing off his skin.

He's felt like this before. The sight of Watanuki cloaked in Yuuko's butterfly dress— When he realized Watanuki had betrayed him. Watanuki had promised him, to live in this world with him. But to see that he meant it only in the most technical sense…

One more time. Realizing that Watanuki won't let anyone deep into his heart, ever again.  _He’s wearing her clothes._ Oh, but Watanuki doesn’t know what he looks like: like a grieving widow or a spinster determined to never marry. Saudade and melancholia, pining with one's whole body, with one's whole mind, carving memories into an unforgettable point that obscures everything else. Loss become a black hole. His life become a mission to plug it with the only thing that can fit it perfectly, rejecting everything else. Doumeki wants nothing more than to look away. He doesn't want to watch.

It must be his task to break the spell, to make Watanuki see sense. He has to try. He’ll be back tomorrow.

But Watanuki has already decided. To wait. Alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you realize how often the lotus shows up in the official art? Do ya do you d’you? Particularly after Watanuki becomes the shopkeeper.
> 
> Part of the “lotus” symbolism is that women planted it in their gardens while their men were away to show they were unavailable, and the flower means "far away from a loved one." The state of Watanuki’s mind, which is preoccupied with Yuuko and preserving his world exactly as-is, might as well be unavailable. The grief and the loss leave no room for any feeling that could rival what he felt for Yuuko. As far as Watanuki concerned, he’s devoted to her, end of story.


	4. Edelweiss (エーデルワイス, flower of eternity) - Power, courage

It is not so long after the death of Clow.

Yuuko had long forgotten to expect a ceremony, a passing of the baton. But she hears the knock and she opens the door to the wishing shop and the entirety of the magical Sumeragi clan, each one graver than the last, file into the parlor of her shop and gaze at her solemnly. And she knows why they are there. At last...

She wonders how much they know. Do they know that  _she_  is dead now, and their recognition is too little, too late, and she will live her life in a moment suspended for an age. If they knew what she had become, would they dare to offer their gift?

The young matriarch explains what they have come to do, and she takes out the symbol that every mage, sorceress, witch and enchanter would recognize as the recognition of their mastery. An open invitation to live forever; the irony bites. The matriarch offers the white flowers to Yuuko Ichihara.

_Edelweiss._

Yuuko reaches out slowly and hooks her fingers around the small bouquet of white starburst flowers, and smiles, and her eyes stay polite and serene while the chimes of fate ring unbearably in her ears. Yuuko hates the sound of bells, the sound of commemoration, of sealing. Yuuko accepts her fate.

_Jewel of the homeland, beautiful and white, blooming_ _like the stars..._

The Sumeragi clan is a powerful force. They are the administrators. They recognize talent, bestow credentials. They have now burdened her with a title, a responsibility, made her an authority, a voice with exemplary moral authority and trustworthiness. She has always been the Space and Time Witch. But now, only now they have decided she was worthy of the name and the call to quality that she has always upheld—now she will be known and respected and feared.

It doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter, but she is angry. The honor leaves her cold. There is no surpassing Clow now that he is dead. There is no joy in inheriting his reputation for power. His existence has been snuffed out. Hers should have been wiped away if he had not interfered. That action, in and of itself, might have flown in the face of his claim to mastery and its responsibilities, but he did so.

Yuuko will take her mastery but she will not live for her clients, for the countless people who will come to depend on her. No, she has one concern: her last promise to Clow, to the fulfillment of his vision.

She takes her mastery. _  
_

* * *

Watanuki takes the single flower from Subaru Sumeragi's proffered palm with numb fingers. It is white and shaped with sharp petals like a starburst.

"You've waited a long time for this," says Subaru.

Watanuki shakes his head. "I didn't even know to expect it."

"The best gifts come like that."

"But am I really...?"

"The most powerful and trustworthy sorcerer in the world?" Subaru sighs and closes his eyes as if they pain him. "It is now your responsibility to make sure of that."

An invitation to live forever.

Watanuki stares at the white flower in his hand until its shape blurs and warps in his sight. He is already living that dream.

"You have a responsibility," Subaru continues. "You have always had it, but this is a reminder of its importance. From now on, if you really wished to do damage, no one could stop you. By the same token...the Sumeragi clan believes that you have enough moral fiber that such an eventuality should never come to fruition."

"I wonder if any of us can really be trusted so," Watanuki says softly.

Subaru nods, looking a tiny bit pleased that someone else shares his misgivings. "I wonder, too. But we put our trust in you."

"A powerful thing." Watanuki stares at the  _edelweiss_ flower in his hand. "May I be worthy of it."

He takes his mastery.


	5. Yellow Rose (黄色い薔薇, kiiroi bara) - "Let's be friends"

Himawari may not have been Watanuki's Lady Luck, but she always paid attention to him.

Yuuko's first inkling of this may have been when the first time Himawari sent Watanuki yellow roses when he came down with a cold over their first school break. In an instant, Watanuki's wistful admiration transformed into pure and unabashed adoration, because she, alone of anyone his age that he had ever known, had cared enough to be kind so he could see it. The first time Watanuki flipped into 'lovesick mode' over her, he squealed about receiving flowers and how that must mean she liked him, and how romantic that was (although he would never imply anything of the sort within Himawari's earshot). Yuuko wondered. It hadn't been very long since they had first met, yet Himawari had sent them. It was too intense, too soon for feelings of plain friendship. Himawari was definitely interested...

Yet when Yuuko looked at the cheerful bouquet—a plethora of yellow rose, a few red poppies, pink freesia, clover—once Watanuki had brought them back to the shop, she sighed. Friendship, fun-loving, childish, good luck. In effect: "looking forward to when you're back to your old self again." It was a message that insisted on staying strictly in the mode of amiability. Himawari was restraining herself.

If only Watanuki could have liked almost anyone but Himawari. Yuuko was certain that Himawari knew why it would have been wiser to stay apart; and yet Himawari wanted exactly the thing she and Watanuki could not have, and she had already come as close as she dared. Yuuko hoped that pure intentions would be enough.

It was then that she began subtly encouraging Watanuki to reconsider Doumeki. The poor thing was stubborn, but Yuuko was determined. Doumeki was the only one who could protect Watanuki, and Watanuki needed to know that he would be foolish not to value that. Should Watanuki's powers mix badly with Himawari's, Doumeki would have a stabilizing effect, and in the long run he would dampen the likelihood of romance with his presence, which would make Himawari more comfortable. Yuuko didn't exactly want to break their friendship, because Watanuki needed every single human contact he could get. And besides... Yuuko sensed Doumeki cared more for her apprentice than he let on.

Himawari sent the yellow roses every time Watanuki was sick, and Watanuki adored them, because it was all he had. Friendship was too precious to spoil. But on the day Himawari revealed her secret, she did not send them. Neither could pretend that they hadn't wanted more.


End file.
